Rescue me
by Toni Harrison
Summary: Post ep and onwards for 3.23 End game again!. Danny POV. Lots of angst. Some bad language. Part 1 of ? perhaps. Please read and review.


Title: Rescue Me

Email: Note: Thanks again to all who reviewed my first two fics. It means a lot. Thankyou.

Again this is unbetaed and perhaps the beginning of a longer fic. It doesn't really relate at all to either of my two previous WaT fics though Luisa Da Rosa is in this fic. She was mentioned in Lady Luck. (Oh and sorry if the seperation between this bit and the fic isn't there again).

The title of the fic comes from a song and band I loved in the late 1990s and have rediscovered. 'Rescue Me' was a great song by a British band called Ultra who sadly never made it big but this particular song is gorgeous.

Finally the disclaimer. I don't produce the show and none of the characters belong to me. Any original characters and the idea for this fic are mine though.

It's only when it's dark that I dream about it.

It's only when it's light that I think about it.

So okay, I think it's pretty easy to figure out from that that I think about it all the time. Nothing else ever really matters. When I look on the internet and find out about the effects of this sort of thing, they say work can distract you.

Not me though.

I think I'd buried it all down, deep down. And then Viv came back.

I don't think I can even pinpoint where this all started, although to some it may seem obvious, Fitz and I went through 7 shades of hell. We were both shot, not ever in a way that endangered our lives truly, but still...shot.

Me in my leg and shoulder and Fitz in his arm. They said we were lucky. And I guess in basic terms we were. They also said we were lucky we had each other to talk to about it. I guess that was the theory anyway.

As it happens, I don't even think I'd need to count on two fingers the times we've talked about it. That suited me fine.

Fitz went home a few days before me. I guess if I'm honest that's where my problems started maybe, just a little anyway.

Sam collected him and they dropped by to see me as she wheeled him out of the hospital. All full of bright smiles, jokes and of course Fitz with the customary takeout bag that Sam had brought with her every day to the hospital. I got grapes, and only then if I was lucky.

Of course I was all smiles too, that was what was expected and yet somewhere in me was stirring a feeling, an unfamiliar one but one that burned inside slowly, festering. I fought against it then and listened and nodded joking as always as Sam promised she'd stop by to see me the in the next day or so.

Of course she didn't. She had Fitz home safe and sound now, work aside, why on earth would she ever tear herself away to see me?

And so I was left with the booby prize, Jack. I'll give him credit though, he never failed to stop by to see me each day. He also never failed to seem completely freaked out by the environment at the hospital and never failed to ever seem anything other than completely ill at ease. Although I humoured him, when he was there with me, that burning feeling was reawakening in the pit of my stomach.

Again though I ignored it, told him thanks for stopping by and to get home. And no, he really didn't have to stop by tomorrow, then immediately after that saying it'd be nice all the same if he did. Being on my own except for the nurses practically 24/7 now that Fitz had gone home was

sapping any slight feeling of a positive mental attitude that I was clinging to.

Still, that's not to say I didn't have some good times in hospital. Okay, so I didn't go swinging from the lights in the operating theatre with Nurse Kate or any of that shit.

But Viv was in hospital while I was in there, looking wonderful. Vital. Viv, the way I'd come to rely on. My rock. Only not so much now. It wasn't the time for her to be anyone's rock, it was a time for us to be there for her now. Marcus was by her side constantly, or as much as he could be. And then when he wasn't I'd tried to be by her side too.

She'd try and get me to talk about the shooting. She gave up trying after about a week of attempts and brushoffs from yours truly after Fitz had gone home.

Then there was Luisa. I'd only met her a few weeks before it happened and I'd pretty much hidden this new light under a bushel from everyone but I still couldn't fail to feel optimistic about things. Luisa was incredible. Bright, smart, funny. Totally going against the grain Fitz I'm sure would've said.

She has the most amazing eyes too and another couple of pairs of features that are amazing too. Thing is I've met plenty of ladies like this in my time and they've only lasted a week or two at most recently. Work being busy and all almost constantly doesn't easily lend itself to a solid and settled foundation on which to build even a tentative relationship.

Luisa saw all this, recognised this from the word go and just breezed along with it. Never got upset if I cancelled a date, seemed totally contented with us having a snatched conversation on the phone every couple of days and as long as we saw each other once a week, that seemed enough for her. She was sensational.

She didn't know anything about me though. Of course she's hardly the first really. I don't think anyone knows me really. I don't think even I do entirely. I spend so long and so much time and energy burying my feelings just to keep myself relatively sane, and more to the point sober, I don't think I'd ever recognise the real me even if I bumped my head hard in an effort to try and find him.

Despite all this, she would come in and see me every day after work. She worked for a bookstore and every night she'd bring along some book, initially books about some guy in his 30s or 40s who was a reluctant hero with some kind of dark secret in his life that led him to drink or drugs or to have some other fatal flaw. I didn't want to read a book which could have easily been about me or my colleagues. So she gave up with that and then tried the Harry Potter tack.

First I can say I can see why kids like the books, I can even see why some adults do too. But I can't get excited about Hermoine, it'd be completely wrong and I should probably get locked up if I did.

So she gave up with that and then just brought in magazines. Not all of them the top shelf ones either. Sports ones mostly.

It just showed that she cared, wanted to invest some time in me, knew I was struggling especially when I was on my own all day long.

I felt sorry for her when she came in, the Danny she'd met just a short while before was there somewhere, he was sometimes even there on the surface for all to see, laughing and joking, flirting with the nurses, taking the rise out of Fitz which is always just too easy and effortless.

When Fitz went home though, and even thought it was only just over a week before I was going home too, I seemed to slide into this routine of watching crappy television. Oprah was out I was relieved to note to myself, but if I could have watched Wheel of fortune reruns 24/7 I think I would've.

At least someone seemed to be having fun, ten years ago anyway.

Then came the time for me to go home. The day I'd been waiting for all along. I was so excited. In my head I was practising my wheelies in the wheelchair down the corridor with Sam, Jack, Fitz, Viv, and most importantly Raffie laughing indulgently as I did all this before Raffie would come and stand before me and take my hand, give me a big brotherly hug and we'd go home to live a familial existence, being smothered by love and cheesecakes.

It said a lot to me that Luisa didn't feature in my thoughts at this stage.

Instead, the orderly and Nurse Kate made sure I got to the exit in one piece and saw me into a cab to my apartment. I knew there were plausible explanations, certainly from Jack and Sam, Fitz was busy recuperating and making the most of his last few days of rest before starting back at work on desk duty the next week and Viv, well she was going home in a day or so too.

Raffie couldn't be there too of course. And the less I thought about that the better.

So as I let myself into my apartment that day, clumsily swinging on to the couch having flung my crutches in frustation onto the floor as I went in and almost went flying for the fourth time in just ten minutes, I could almost feel the fog literally descent into my brain followed by a black cloud of despair and indifference and fell asleep in the cold familiarity of my existence.

The next day I was woken by a loud knocking and a sweet voice shouting my name, cramp was my first feeling in my legs and a stabbing pain in my right leg where the bullet had found it's temporary home.

So as I clambered my way over to the door, I remembered it was a Thursday and that made it Luisa's day off. Glancing at the clock and seeing it was ten past eleven I felt surprise that I'd managed to sleep so long, there again sleep so far had never been a problem and for that I could thank Vicodin and the occasional helping of valium.

An hour later I was alone again, Luisa having left in frustration and some distress just five minutes earlier. I don't even know what made me snap at her. I don't even remember doing it really.

We'd been having a great time before that except for the fact that I hadn't even made overtures to the bedroom which had to suggest either a) remarkable self control or b) a realisation that I Danny Taylor was incapable of anything physical except for limping around and complaining.

As I sat there almost scratching my head Laurel and Hardy style, her mentioning Raffie and did I know how he was seemed to be coming back to me and me just snapping at her, her plugging away and then apologising and then her getting up to make a coffee, me following her at a pace even I was surprised at given how physically hindered I'd felt just a few minutes earlier and grabbing the coffee cup out of her hand and throwing it against the wall and shouting at her to mind her own business.

It all came back to me then at a horrifying pace, her hand going to my face tenderly touching it, hearing her voice from very far away asking me what was wrong and me swatting it away and then my hand going to her face but not tenderly, definitely not tenderly.

The next thing I remembered was the door slamming.

So that was that. It's a pretty good sign of how whacked I was that I just calmly got myself another cup from the cupboard, made myself a coffee and sat down to watch some more crap on cable and didn't give it another thought.

And so from then on for another 2 weeks or so, aside from visits to the hospital for some physical therapy which I was applying myself to with a vigour the therapist was astounded by, that was a pattern of my days.

Viv stopped by once a week or so after her leaving hospital and instead of me feeling flattered and lavishing care and attention on her as should have been the case, she simply gave up after half an hour or so as she realised she was fighting a losing battle in snatching my attention from cable.

Fitz came by with takeaway, doughnuts and cherryade and jabbered away enthusiastically about being back at work on desk duty, how great things were going with Sam and how he felt a sense of renewal and a chance at starting afresh or some other similar type of crap he'd obviously read about in 'Near death weekly' or whatever.

Sam came by the next day after Fitz had visited for some tea and overloaded with sympathy and something which seemed suspiciously like concern all over her eyes and face. Saying something about 'Are you sleeping?' and 'Are you having bad dreams?'.

I obviously convinced her I was fine or scared her off totally as she didn't come by again before I went back to work but assured me 'I'm on the other end of the phone always, you know that'. I think I did somewhere.

Luisa came by again, just a fleeting visit this time and armed with only a peck for my cheek and another few books which I didn't even look at and instead just piled them on top of my ever increasing mound of newspapers which had been cursorily tossed to the side of my dinner table.

And sometimes as I sat in the dark, I would think to myself in answer to Sam's questions and if I was honest, no I wasn't sleeping although that was a small lie, I was sleeping at times but that was only when I couldn't face watching 'Evil Dead 39 - the fish ate my shark' for the tenth time and when I couldn't bear to see my face in the reflection of my tv any longer.

Only when I did eventually get to sleep, the dreams would follow. And they wouldn't even be filled with gunshots or blood or anyone I recognised. They'd be filled with faces, hateful faces, faces that laughed at me, and all I could see was blood on the other faces.

So usually staying awake was preferable. Only then in the morning when I went to the mirror I'd see my face and it wasn't half as pretty as it had been. Even I had to admit that. Dark circles under the eyes, spots appearing from nowhere and I was paler than I could ever remember. No wonder Luisa came nowhere near me. I always kept the medicine cabinet open after that for a while so as to avoid looking at myself and my slow metamorphisis into a creature of the living dead.

Time didn't feel like it rushed by at all, it seemed to stagger by halfheartedly while I did the same. I guess somewhere deep down I knew something was wrong, at least that burning feeling seemed to be permanently gone now. Instead I had a constant feeling of indifference.

Except where it came to work. That was my one thing to cling onto. Somewhere I could go and do something I was good at. Somewhere I could concentrate all my energies and somewhere that'd force me to stay awake and not succumb to the horror movie nightmares.

Physically generally I was doing fine, my gunshot wounds had pretty much healed themselves. I got the occasional pain from them. But overall I was 99 recovered. I still looked like death warmed up but that was mainly due to my recently discovered vampire like tendency to never go out unless I needed to.

Mentally, I was doing fine too. Though the visit I had from Jack a couple of days before my return suggested he felt otherwise.

Jack's known me for years and yet it was like he had met me for the first time that day. Even in my admittedly hazy brain and indifference I could feel that. He didn't sit down, he didn't accept a cup of coffee.

He just muttered something about me undergoing a psych evaluation before I started back. I don't know if he expected me to shout and rant and rave. I think he was more than a little shocked when I just asked when and where and sat down drinking my 12th coffee of the day and carried on watching cable like he wasn't there.

I didn't even notice him leave.

The night before I was attending my psych evaluation and then my anticipated return to work a couple of hours later, I looked at myself again in the mirror for the first time in days and even through that fog I felt some sense of shock.

It was like I was looking at another person. It was like I was looking at a dead person. The comparisons I'd jokingly made to myself with that of a vampire didn't seem that far off. I was almost tempted too to bite my hand just to see some colour in me.

So I made a big effort, by that I mean I shaved, a beard I decided didn't suit me. It made me look anything but hot. That's something I wasn't used to.

I also had a proper wash, again quite a rare occurence in the life of the all new Danny Taylor. And even though I admit it myself I looked better. Okay, not exactly a match for Tom Cruise or even for Fitzie which is saying a lot but at least I looked alive now.

It didn't really matter surely, that inside I still felt nothing. Except that wasn't exactly true as I sat staring at the television and the clock as it ticked over in the night I felt something rise in me that wasn't pleasure but felt myself shake and even though I dismissed as some serious caffeine withdrawal I couldn't completely believe this.

I left the house at 6am that morning, I knew it was too early but it was a good way of beating the crowds and I'd be there at the psych office nice and early and surely they could only see that as a good thing. I'd even spent half an hour in front of my mirror practising smiling my famous megawatt Danny smile which would no doubt have the lady swooning over me. And hopefully any man to if that was the case.

I sat reading magazines about women called Britney who'd been left by their partners invariably called Roger or Dwayne and had had twelve children and half of them had been alien births and now they wondered where it had all gone wrong and felt that maybe I was still the normal one compared to these people anyway.

She came out to see me at 9am prompt, all smiles and professional manners. And somehow I got through it. I laughed, I joked, I turned on the Taylor charm, talked sincerely about how the shooting had changed my outlook on life, of course it had but I just stole all Fitz's lines rather than telling her about the real effect that somewhere I knew in my heart it had had. And said that I couldn't wait to start counselling which I hadn't thought about needing so far as I'd been so busy getting myself right physically to start back at work.

I don't know whether she fully believed me and she did try and probe me a couple of times but an hour later I walked out with the all important seal of approval and strode happily, well purposefully anyway toward work.

And so for the first couple of weeks I threw myself into work, stayed late, and actually enjoyed desk duty. Fitz and I were on the surface back to our old ways, I'd be wisecracking constantly, he'd be eating crap constantly.

I'd sweet talk Sam who would bite back with some cute remark and Jack would watch over us like some rabid mother hen. Clearly glad to have us all back except for Viv who nevertheless was due back in a week or two, physical permitting.

So on the surface I was back to normal and actually I was doing a pretty good of fooling myself. Except somewhere along the line I was amazing myself at the ability I had to function still without practically any sleep. I had to stop myself quoting lines from films and talk about cable quiz shows to prevent them learning about my guilty secret.

I still was doing the Greta Garbo thing at home, I'd stopped taking calls from Luisa, so she'd taken to another tack of mailing the books through to me, knowing my next door neighbour Mrs Fawcett had retired and would take them for me.

There's only so many minutes of the door buzzer going that you can take without finally giving in and answering it and so I consigned another box of books to the pile not before I noticed, the book 'PTSD - cause and effects and a way to live a normal life', she must've sent me the wrong box.

Then Viv came back. Impenetrable Vivian. I'd actually started out working back out on the streets the day before she came back and I felt like a kid again. It helped that the cases we were getting were largely uncomplicated so the stress levels were minimal. Of course, that sounds absurd I'm sure to people who baulk at the very idea of this job but for me I just felt like I was home again.

I avoided Viv like the plague really, I'd felt amazed and that I was living a charmed life fooling Sam but Viv's eyes followed me everywhere. So I went on charm offensive overdrive, flirting with Sam whenever I could, lapping up Fitz's outrage and teasing him ever more to the point where I was even annoying myself about his penchant for junk food and then baiting Jack like a stupid fourth grader annoying his form teacher by throwing elastic bands at him constantly. And all the while avoiding Viv's probing eyes.

The night before it happened, I should've guessed the web I'd been weaving was getting unravelled. There was a letter that came through the post from my brother.

It was a letter that berated me for not getting in contact with him to let him know I was out of hospital, for not going to see him, for not going to see Sylvia and Nicky and for not looking after them. Basically for not being the person I'd always been for him, basically for giving a shit about myself for once more than for him.

It was then that the burning feeling started again and from nowhere I made a noise that scared even me. A keening type of noise. And when I fought against crying, I just threw things around my kitchen and living room. Wrecked my living room in a way that those rock bands of the 60s, 70s and every other decade since really would be proud of and threw the books Luisa had sent me through the window, threw a vase I'd been bought by Mrs Fawcett when I first moved in to the apartment in the general direction of my television and watched confusedly as it caused a crack in the screen and as smoke rose from the back of the set.

That wasn't the brightest thing I ever did. Now it really would be a case of staring at the four walls all night.

There was a buzzing at the door and the sound of Mrs Fawcett's voice anxiously calling my name. I ignored it and as I slowly looked around my room surveying the damage, I fell to my knees. This wasn't me. And yet it so clearly was.

It was the new Danny Taylor, seemingly creeping ever faster back to the old Danny Taylor, it'd only be a matter of time before I screwed my life up totally and started falling off the wagon. And that's when I knew where I had to go.

I'll never know how I made it there but that doesn't really matter now as I made it there somehow.

And that's where she found me in the morning having been alarted by a phone call from a practically hysterical Mrs Fawcett. Rocking back and forth, with my hands over my ears, crying and screaming silently. Under my desk at 6am in the morning, she crawled under there with me and just hugged me, took me in her arms, talked to me in a way I don't think my mother even talked to me like and said those three little words.

'Talk to me'. And so between those tears I finally did.

TBC?


End file.
